ATL Cymru comment on Wales GCSE and Welsh Baccalaureate results

Keith Bowen, Director ATL Cymru has congratulated GCSE and Welsh Baccalaureate students in Wales on their results today.

He said:

“Well done to students across Wales on all their hard work in achieving their GCSE and Welsh Baccalaureate results this year, helping them to continue on to study for A levels or go into vocational training.

“We also recognise the hard work of teachers, leaders and support staff across Wales, despite the constant change and very real funding and workload pressures they face. This has been a year of significant change, in particular to GCSE English, Welsh and Maths exams in Wales. There has also been a large increase in early entry for these exams, which makes the results hard to analyse at this point. Although we are concerned that the focus on literacy and numeracy has been accompanied by a decrease in entries in English literature, modern languages and a wide range of optional subjects. We would also not want to see the emerging pattern for early entry, which has impacted on outcomes, to develop into a longer-term trend of settling for lower A* to C results.”